Practicing Hospitality

The blog Girl Talk discusses in this post on hospitality about how we feel pressure to perform when we practice hospitality--putting on a Paula Deen spread, as they put it. It brought back memories of my years as a young married. (Happy 14th anniversary to my sweetie, today, by the way!) I remember being struck by how easy going my friend Deb was about having me over... actually about everything. But specifically I remember she didn't worry if her house was spotless and she had a clean tablecloth (in fact, I don't remember a tablecloth!), with all the formal accessories of hosting company. I remember how she focused on blessing me and fellowshipping with me. I felt ministered to by her opening her home, and her being secure in the fact that it wasn't perfect. She didn't try to fool me into thinking she had it all together. I simply saw that she was very much like the Proverbs 31 woman who laughs at the days to come... and at the little inconveniences in life--like her toddler playing in the toilet. She just laughed at her little girl as she pulled her away and said, "We're not going to do that!" I thought to myself, "I want to be a mom like this."

The Bible instructs us to practice hospitality. Romans 12:13 says, "Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." In fact, it's not an option. I believe it's not only our duty but our honor and pleasure to open our home to others, favorite friends or not. After all, everything we have is the Lord's, including our home. I think we get intimidated by the thought of all the cleaning we'd want to do, or the inconvenience of cooking something special. But the Lord just wants us to open our homes and our resources up to others. After all, He's been so good to us and so generous, how can we hoard what we have to ourselves?

I'm guilty of not doing this lately, and I say it's because my husband's been in school. But I can still open my home to friends, and that's what I'm motivated to do now. Paula Deen, I'm not even going to try to compete with you! Lunch, anyone?